


Russian Roulette Croquembouche

by misantlery



Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Pining, the Cream Puffs are a Metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 19:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17028960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misantlery/pseuds/misantlery
Summary: “You’re a food magnet,” Andrew chides, pulling a strand of caramel from the terrycloth.“I’m a fancy dessert boy,” Steven says, grinning. Rie collapses into silent giggles, the cream puff in her hand dripping caramel onto the counter.“Get that on your business card,” Andrew advises. “Steven Lim, video producer, world traveler, fancy dessert boy. Human cream puff.”





	Russian Roulette Croquembouche

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlmarauders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlmarauders/gifts).



> This fic’s set during the filming of the recent Worth It [three-part holiday special](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz-RVFwgY1k). I had a lot of fun writing it (and rewatching old eps for research) and I really hope you enjoy it. Happy Yuletide!

**I. Appetizers**

They spend hours on a conference call brainstorming the holiday episode.

They used to do these meetings in person, holed up in a conference room with tacos, Steven writing ideas on the whiteboard in a big, broad hand that gets messier the more excited he gets. Now they’re mostly done by phone or Skype or Slack on a three-hour time difference. It’s harder. Everything about the show is harder with Steven in New York three weeks out of every month, _not_ that Andrew’s complaining.

“What about three different holiday foods at three different price points?” Steven asks. “Come out to New York City, we’ll put everybody in scarves and hats, get some good shots of the tree at Rockefeller Center.”

“What would the food be?” Andrew asks. He loves New York as much as the next person, but it sounds a little sterile to him, a little cliché.

“Some big roast thing, I guess,” Steven says. “Maybe Chinese duck, like in _A Christmas Story_. Hmm…Christmas cookies? Latkes? Get a nice mix in there.”

“I like the idea of a big roast thing,” Andrew agrees.

“Big meat!”

“That’s what they called me in high school,” Andrew jokes absent-mindedly, more a reflex at this point than a proper joke. “Big Meat Ilnyckyj.”  

“That’s good, save that for the episode,” Annie chimes in, even as Steven lets out a little groan on the other end of the line. If he were here in person Andrew would get to see his expression, screwed up in performative distaste, and feel the indignant puff of air when he exhales.

It’s not as fun to poke at him over the phone.

“Honestly, I don’t love it,” Andrew says.  “It’s a little _Home Alone_ _2: Lost in New York_ , right? Not bad, just…cold. Not very personal.”

“You want it to be personal?” Steven asks. “Mr. I’m-Too-Private-For-Twitter?” His voice cuts in and out a little, like he’s going in and out of a bad connection. It seems absurd to Andrew that there could still be bad connections in 2018.

“Not _personal_ personal,” Andrew says. “But the whole point of the holidays is family, right? So.”

“Oh, I get it,” Steven says, and his voice picks up at the end, like he’s getting excited. “We get our little Worth It fam together, do a big meal family-style. Include some of the editing team and marketing people, maybe, let the viewers meet them? That’s a great idea.”

“Ugh, don’t say ‘fam,’” Annie says.

“Fam,” Steven says again, just making noise. “Fam fam fam-ity fam. Fam-il-leeeeee.”

Andrew considers this for a moment. That’s almost right, he thinks. He wants something that will make him feel warm; he wants something that will make him forget that the major project of his working life has become a bicoastal endeavor, complicated by time zones and meticulously scheduled within an inch of its life around all of Steven’s other commitments.

“No,” Andrew says slowly. “I want a feast for a bunch of our friends, and I want us to cook it ourselves. We’ve never done that before. Maybe two episodes, one for the prep and one for the meal itself. We do it at someone’s house, not some shitty studio.”

Steven’s quiet on the other end of the line. In the end it’s his show, mainly, and what he says goes. Steven’s notoriously reluctant in the kitchen, lacking the confidence he’s gained in most other areas of his life.

“That’s great,” he says at last. “That’s really, really good, Andrew. What if we do half prepared restaurant dishes and half home-cooked stuff? Three episodes, not two, make it a whole December Worth It binge. Maybe then people will stop yelling at me on Instagram about the shorter season.”

“You know they never will,” Andrew says. “That’s what you get for making yourself so available.”

“ _Available_?” Steven asks. “That sounds like a dig on my virtue.”

Adam catches Andrew’s gaze and crosses his eyes, which of course Steven can’t see.

“No one’s got more virtue than you, Steven,” Andrew says. Steven laughs, quiet and distracted; Andrew’s not sure if Steven’s laughing at him or at something happening on his end of the phone.

“I still want to do the Big Meat,” Steven says. “Maybe appetizers, desserts, and then the main event. In the spirit of Christmas, I think we should put aside our differences with the Ghoulboys and extend an olive branch of delicious food.”

“Go ahead and offer Ryan Bergara some big meat and see how that works out for you,” Andrew says with a snort.

It sounds cozy as hell. It sounds _right_ , like the thing you do for the holidays: gather all your friends and family together, cook for each other, share traditions and stories and laughter. It makes the secret nostalgic parts of Andrew, the tender hidden machinery reserved for his innermost circle and not for the internet’s consumption, creak into motion.

They all go quiet, thinking. At first Andrew thinks the call might have been dropped, but then he realizes Steven’s just waiting for the ultimate seal of approval, the way they know they have a winning idea.

“Sounds great to me,” Adam weighs in finally, rendering his verdict. It’s basically the first time he’s spoken in a full hour, and a little nameless tension leaks out of Andrew’s shoulders. The word great, from Adam, who chooses every word meticulously and uses them sparingly, is no small thing. It’s not a filler word. It means _great_.

*

The potluck comes together over the course of October, growing in scope until they’ve got friends involved in every step of the process: taking them to favorite restaurants, sharing family recipes, and coming for the meal itself.

Buzzfeed fights them on it. It’s not quite what Worth It _is_ , the execs argue. It’s a stretch to make it even come within shouting distance of the formula. People who watch the show for the routine of it will probably be disappointed.

Maybe, but _Andrew_ won’t be disappointed. In the end Steven takes a few meetings and they get a Google sponsorship for it. Andrew doesn’t love the prospect of having to shoehorn random “Okay Google!”s into the episode, but he’ll take the bargain if it means they can film it.

They shoot over three days in early November. A whirlwind month of planning and suddenly they’re in their coworker Kiano’s kitchen, watching her teach them how to fold Kenyan beef samosas with careful, practiced turns of her wrist.

Steven’s nervous in her kitchen, visibly so, and watching Steven get nervous around food is one of Andrew’s very favorite things. So much of the show is Steven Takes On Food, and it’s fun to watch the food take on Steven for once.  

“I’m going to mess this up,” Steven says, apologizing even before the cameras start to roll. Kiano’s just talked them through the process, and then they’ll do the whole thing together on camera. “I’m sorry if we have to do ten takes of this.”

“You’ll keep up fine,” Andrew says. “She’ll make the dough. Then we just roll and fill and fry.”

Compounding Steven’s nerves is that he doesn’t really _know_ Kiano. She’s an L.A. Tasty producer, hired after Steven moved to New York. All of Steven’s West Coast connections have given way to Andrew’s connections, he’s ceded his home turf to Andrew, and neither of them is used to it yet.  

Andrew can see glimmers of the telltale signs of social anxiety that Steven’s doing his very best to hide. He starts to chatter, making the editing team’s work harder. He takes a step back, into the periphery of the shot, letting Andrew take the lead to stretch and roll the dough.

“You’re going to fold this one,” Andrew says, handing Steven a square of dough, pulling him back into the center of the shot.

“I’m going to ruin it!” Steven says, joking but _no_.  “Look, it’s—oh no!”

“What’s the matter, Steven?” Andrew asks. He can’t keep the teasing note out of his voice, doesn’t bother to hide the perverse sense of joy he gets from watching Steven work his way through his uncertainty. It’s like a glimpse at Old Steven, back when they started, when he was all nerves and excitement. Andrew gets that little jolt again, of nostalgia and fondness and _remembering_.

Adam makes a face at him from behind the camera.

“I don’t know what happened!” Steven says, looking around the room as if someone else will pop in and take the lightly mangled lump of dough out of his hand. “It’s ripped down here.”

“It’s fine, stop panicking,” Andrew says. He wraps his hand around Steven’s. “Do you need to call an adult? Here, just—pinch it, like that.”

“ _You just pinch it_ ,” Steven mimics. “Like it’s easy. Get a load of Betty Crocker over here.”

Steven’s hands shake under his, just briefly, and then the dough’s fixed and ready for filling and Steven’s wiping his hands on his shirt.

A quick fry and the samosas are done. They smell amazing. Steven clearly forgets his worries the moment they’ve moved from the cooking portion into the eating portion, where he’s most at home. Steven throws himself into eating the samosas, moaning indecently and doing a dumb little dance against the back counter of Kiano’s kitchen.

The thing is that he’s not even hamming it up for the camera. Andrew’s seen him eat off-camera and he’s exactly the same way, enthusiastic to the point of distraction.

Andrew loves the process parts of filming more. He loves to ask restauranteurs and chefs questions; he loves to watch them work; he loves to cook himself. It’s when the food arrives that he starts to overthink every little thing—is he enjoying the food too much, or not enough? Is he chewing too loudly? Is he watching Steven too closely, as Steven enjoys his own food, and is it weird that he wants to?

“You know, Steven, sometimes it feels intrusive to look at you while you eat,” Andrew says. “Like I shouldn’t be watching. It feels very private, for a thing you’re doing in front of literal millions of people.”

“So don’t watch,” Steven says, waggling his eyebrows and going all in with lime on another samosa. “It’s like with mukbangs. People want to hear the enthusiasm so they can feel like they’re enjoying the food themselves. It’s psychology.”

“It’s my job to watch you,” Andrew points out. “I think if I start blatantly looking off to the side any time you take a bite of food we’re going to get some questions about it.”

“Why, am I making you uncomfortable?” Steven asks. He takes another bite of samosa, rolling his eyes with exaggerated delight at the crunch it makes. When he groans again, Andrew recognizes it as a taunt.

“Well, _now_ you are,” Andrew says, smiling in spite of himself. “With the eyebrows and the noises.”

“You know, a lot of fans think you give off serial killer vibes,” Steven says, licking the tips of his fingers. He’s not trying to be showy about it, but Andrew’s attention is captured nonetheless. “I think maybe your discomfort watching me enjoy one of life’s most basic pleasures—a delicious meal—suggests they might be right.”

“Oh, now I’m the one who’s uncomfortable enjoying one of life’s most basic pleasures?” Andrew asks, before he can stop himself. He thinks he may have gone too far—he doesn’t tease Steven about the celibacy thing, not usually, and especially not after his break-up—but Steven just throws his head back and laughs.

“The Serial Killer and the Virgin,” Steven muses, entirely unembarrassed. “Let’s get that on some merch. Expand the brand.”

“You guys know we’re still filming, right?” Annie asks, her headphones askew over one ear. “Try to say less weird crap we’re going to have to cut.”

*

The car ride back to the office is quiet, thanks to the samosa coma.  Adam keeps yawning in the backseat; Annie’s staring out the window at nothing. Andrew gets in a few more “Okay, Google!”s in, so the editors have some choice.

“Thanks for this,” Steven says from the passenger seat. He doesn’t drive now, when they’re filming in L.A. He doesn’t even have a car here anymore. Andrew’s still not quite sure how he feels about being the one behind the wheel.

“You didn’t hate the cooking too much?”

“I hated it a little,” Steven admits. “Not really, though. No, I just mean— _this_ is what I want the show to be. When I think about our, like—our legacy, this is what I think about.”

Sometimes it takes Steven a few tries to say what he wants to say, when the thing is important. Andrew knows to just give him some time to work it out. His first take is rarely his best one.

“I know everybody jokes about the gold leaf and the truffles and stuff,” Steven says. “And it’s definitely true that sometimes we eat some real monstrosities in the name of entertainment. But this, today, this felt worthwhile.”

“I can’t believe you just said _our legacy_ with a straight face,” Andrew says.

Steven giggles a little behind his hand, like he knows it sounds silly, and settles back into his seat with a little thump.

“Obviously,” he agrees. “I just, I grew up in Ohio, kids making fun of my lunch every day. It was always important to me to show people how other cultures eat. Filming Kiano’s mom’s recipe was, it was special, right? That recipe made it all the way from a kitchen in Kenya into our hot little hands.”

“Hot little hands…?”

“Can we please have an honest conversation where you don’t repeat every other thing I say?”

“I don’t know, Steven, can you say things that aren’t so ridiculous I have to repeat them to make sure I didn’t hallucinate them?”

“I’m just saying, this holiday special was a great idea. I’m grateful to you for having it. I’m expressing my gratitude.”

“You can express it by getting your dirty shoe off my dashboard,” Andrew says. He’s trying to pass for gruff and no-nonsense, but he doesn’t think he’s entirely successful from the way Steven darts a glance over.

Steven props his other foot up too, and when Andrew sighs for effect he giggles again.

**II. Desserts**

“I’ve never had a _croquembouche_ before,” Steven offers on the way to Rie’s house.

He’s wearing this absurd hoodie with the arms cut off at his biceps. Andrew keeps looking at it—to observe how ridiculous it looks, obviously, and not to consider whether Steven’s been working out more lately, and if so, why.

“I’ve never had a _croquembouche_ either,” Andrew says.

“I’ve had a croak in my throat, though.” Steven makes a croaky frog noise, a ribbet for emphasis.

“But not in your _bouche_?”

It’s a pretty good little joke, Andrew thinks, even though it wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny. It gets a laugh out of Steven, at any rate—not like that’s particularly difficult to do—and a smile out of Adam, which is a loftier achievement.

“We’re not talking about my _bouche_ on camera, this is a family show,” Steven says, flustered and pink-cheeked the way he always gets at the merest suggestion of a dirty joke.

“We talk about your _bouche_ on camera all the time,” Andrew says. “ _Bouche_ means mouth. This show exists because of your _bouche_.”

“I need everyone in this car to stop saying _bouche_ so we can get some usable footage where Steven isn’t fire-engine red,” Annie intervenes.

*

It’s been a trying day for Andrew. He feels _tried_. They’ve been at The Pie Hole already today to film the restaurant bits, so he’s stuffed full of pretty good pie, and that’s not bad. It’s just that Steven is looking very Steven-y today, almost intolerably so, and Andrew can’t tell if he’s annoyed or intrigued.

His hair is sky high, for starters. Andrew’s surprised Steven was able to get through the door of the restaurant without demolishing the elaborate hair skyscraper on top his head. And then there’s the hoodie, which honestly raises a lot more questions than it answers, and Andrew’s just a naturally inquisitive man.  He has a healthy intellectual curiosity about the world, and his curiosity extends to Steven’s arms in that sweatshirt.

At one point he opens his mouth to say something about the Earl Grey Tea pie they’re eating, and instead what comes out is, “Hey Steven, have you been working—”

He stops mid-sentence.

“Working?” Steven prompts.

“Working…on finishing the last of that apple crumble pie?” Andrew finishes lamely. Annie coughs.

“I figured we were saving that for Adam and Annie,” Steven says, patient, like this isn’t the routine at every single place they eat.

“Right,” Andrew says. “Of course. That’s very _pie-_ ous of you.”

Steven stares for a moment and then he cracks, pushing his plate aside and putting his head down on the table to laugh into his elbows.

“No one does those like you do,” he says, shaking his head and coming up for air. He sticks a fork into the slice of salted chocolate pie in front of Andrew. “On the list of things I miss about L.A. it’s, like, the best boba tea, and really good produce, and then your terrible food puns.”

Steven’s got some pie crumbs down his front, and they are very distracting. It’s like having a ragged fingernail or a thread hanging off your jacket; once Andrew notices the crumbs he can’t stop noticing them. Adam hasn’t said anything, but maybe they look bad on camera.

He should tell Steven about the crumbs. He should say, “Oh, Steven, you’ve got some crumbs on your weird hoodie that’s got short sleeves for some reason.” He should point and make a joke about how Steven’s a sloppy eater.

Instead he just…reaches out to brush the crumbs off, a careful hand at Steven’s chest, the soft fleece of the hoodie under his touch for only a second before his fingers alight away again. Only enough time for the fleeting impressions of _soft_ and _warm_.

“Crumbs,” he says, when Steven looks up at him in surprise. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

“Oh,” says Steven, smiling. “Thanks. I’m making a mess of myself, as usual.”

And then _Andrew_ feels a little flustered, and that’s not right at all. He much prefers to be the stern, unflappable one, but he can feel his traitorous ears glowing bright and hot.

Over the top of the camera, Adam fixes him with a Look. Adam’s always fixing people with Looks, capital-L, instead of speech, but this one feels particularly like a rebuke. Andrew glares back, stubbornly refusing to be the one who looks away. He’s done nothing wrong. He was getting a better shot, and Adam should be grateful.

“So,” Steven says, oblivious. “Pie.”

*

At Rie’s place, things get a little silly. People don’t guess this about Rie, but she’s a very _light_ person; kind as can be, smart as hell, but always playful, and she brings it out in them as well. She makes Andrew feel lighter himself, and that’s no small thing.

There was so much footage from Japan that they couldn’t use. So much laughing until they had coughing fits, chasing after Rie as she took them on a whirlwind tour of Japanese public transit, shoving a wide variety of street foods in their faces as they ran from location to location trying to keep to a punishing shooting schedule.

When Andrew thinks back on that trip now, it’s brighter than all the memories around it. Sometimes when he closes his eyes to sleep he’s back at a Japanese night market, his back drenched in sweat, watching Steven eat a matcha ice cream cone nearly as big as his head. Everything from that week is technicolor and urgent and formative.

Having them all back in the same room is like that, all over again—joy near to giddiness, Annie begging Steven to calm down so they can get the shots. Andrew’s giddiness is of the deep, interior variety in general, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it.  

“I’m going to make it a Russian Roulette croquembouche,” Rie explains, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “So some of the cream puff has cream, but some of the cream puff has wasabi.”

She laughs to herself, clearly proud of her own deviousness.

“Ohhhh,” Andrew and Steven say, low and in unison.

“Every party needs a fun game,” she adds.

Andrew loves the whole concept, loves the unexpectedness of it—that someone will bite into a cream puff expecting a burst of safe sweetness and get a spicy, slightly painful surprise instead. He likes when things aren’t what they seem. He likes when people surprise him. He’s just not sure _he’d_ be ready for the wasabi.

“It’s going to hurt so bad!” Steven says.  

“Well, that’s life,” Andrew says, adopting a philosophical tone. “Sometimes you get the cream and sometimes you get the wasabi.”

They assemble the cream puff tower together. Steven’s so careful with it, pressing the cream puffs into the hot caramel and then gently to the cone mold like he’s worried his clumsy hands will wreck all of Rie’s effort. Andrew wants to tell him he’s doing a good job, but he worries the unsolicited compliment will have the opposite effect, will make Steven feel more self-conscious rather than less.

He’s got little wispy strands of caramel on his sweater, right where the pie crumbs landed. Andrew bets that if he put his nose there, against the fabric at Steven’s chest, he’d smell the caramel and the pie dust both, a full dessert course next to his skin.

“You’re a food magnet,” Andrew chides, pulling a strand of caramel from the terrycloth.

“I’m a fancy dessert boy,” Steven says, grinning. Rie collapses into silent giggles, the cream puff in her hand dripping caramel onto the counter.

“Get that on your business card,” Andrew advises. “Steven Lim, video producer, world traveler, fancy dessert boy. Human cream puff.”

“Maybe I also contain wasabi,” Steven says. He smiles again, but it’s a tiny private smile, aimed at no one but himself.

“Hmm,” Andrew says. That’s all he can come up with, “hmm.”

It wasn’t until Steven moved to New York that Andrew realized Steven still had the power to surprise him.

L.A. Steven had been very predictable. Sure, he’d say ridiculous things, but always _predictably_. Andrew learned his patterns: he’d act out when he was flustered, he’d make silly pronouncements when he was bored, he’d ramble when he was nervous. L.A. Steven was a kid, practically; despite only being six months younger than Andrew, his lived experience was so narrow that in all the ways that counted, he was much younger. After a solid two years of filming the show, Andrew thought it was safe to say he knew Steven about as well as anyone.

Then Steven moved, and every time they came back together to shoot in this city or that country he was different again. Like he just had to get away from the people who’d seen him every day to let himself be someone new.

He outgrew his relationship, he outgrew the L.A. food scene, and he outgrew the routine. Now he seems—worldly. He’s still awkward, still identifiably Steven. It’s just that he’s confident, too; actually self-assured, instead of performing confidence and praying for it to stick.

Japan had been a shock. It had been a huge endeavor, that trip. A logistical nightmare, a feat of scheduling, and Steven had handled it all like it was nothing. _Oh, you grew up_ , Andrew remembers thinking to himself, sitting next to a be-suited Steven at the table at Kyubey having the best sushi of his or anyone’s life. _I took my eye away for a moment and you caught up with me._

After the cream puff tower’s assembled, they sample the extra cream puffs for the camera.

“I want a wasabi one,” Steven says. Another surprise.

“It’s going to be so rough,” Andrew warns. “You said it yourself, it’s going to burn.”

Andrew’s a safe person, fundamentally. He’s a creature of habit. He’s a cat of a person; a homebody, happier to nap in the same patch of sun every day than to risk a new perch and find no sun there at all.

Once he assumed Steven was like that too— _afraid,_ he thinks—but now he knows that’s not the case at all. Steven is, instead, the sort of person who will put his hand to a hot pan even though he’s been told it’s hot, just to find out for himself.

Andrew pops the regular cream puff in his mouth. It is, predictably, delicious. Everything Rie makes is delicious.

Steven puts the wasabi cream puff in his mouth and his face instantly transforms into one of intense discomfort. Rie’s there with a cup of water, but Steven doesn’t take it. He doubles over and reaches out blindly for Andrew’s shoulder, searching for a stable grounding point while he works through the burn of it.

Andrew grabs for Steven’s arm in return. He’s going for manfully supportive but he thinks the overall effect might be more into _concerned for your well-being_ territory or possibly, even worse, _investigating your biceps in that hoodie_ territory. Steven looks like he’s going to cough his stomach up out his esophagus, even as he flashes a wordless thumbs-up to the camera.

It’s going to be a great end to the episode, though. Andrew gets out a few quips, lets himself have a little laugh with Rie at Steven’s expense. They high-five to cap it off, and then Steven retreats into the corner of the kitchen to inhale a glass of water.

“You okay?” Andrew asks after a minute, while Adam and Annie attend to packing up the equipment.

“Possibly dying,” Steven admits. “That was too much wasabi.”

“Regretting your hubris, are we?”

Steven looks up at him over the rim of the water glass, surprised. He’s shaking his head even as he takes another swig.

“Of course not. I might have really liked it, and how would I know for sure if I never tried it? Maybe wasabi-filled cream puff is your new favorite food in the whole world, but now you’ll never know, will you?”

“Unless I get one when we shoot,” Andrew points out.

Steven’s eyes go wide. “Oh no, I forgot that was a thing that could happen.”

“Well, my cream puff was great,” Andrew says.

“Mmm,” Steven agrees. “You knew exactly what it would taste like, and it delivered.”

Steven is a kind person, generous of spirit. He probably doesn’t mean it as a dig, but it feels like a dig all the same.

No, a _dare_. It feels like a dare, like the gentlest of goads, only Andrew can’t quite tell what he’s being goaded into.

“Nice try, Steven,” he says finally. “You can’t trick me into voluntarily trying the wasabi cream puff. I won’t do it.”

“No, I know you won’t,” Steven agrees. Another goad, as soft as the first, accompanied by a smile so sweet no one else would ever see it for what it is.

*

It’s only later, much later, after he’s dropped Adam and Annie back at Buzzfeed HQ for their cars and dropped Steven off the sad month-to-month rental where he stays one week out of every four, that Andrew realizes how abysmally dumb he’s been.

“Oh no,” he murmurs to himself as he eases his car onto the 101 and straight into bumper-to-bumper traffic. “No, absolutely not.”

In general Andrew thinks he knows himself pretty well. He’s an interior person. He lives as much of his life inside his head as he does outside of it, so it’s not often that he’s entirely blindsided by his own stupidity—by a thing tucked so close to himself he didn’t even know enough to be worried about it.

A little catch at his machinery. A Steven-shaped stone stuck in the cogs, throwing it all off-balance.

The Steven Thing is a thing to be worried about. This new feeling, flustered and watchful. An unfamiliar tactile urge to reach out for the terrycloth of Steven’s sweatshirt and his arms beneath it, or the tall tuft of his hair, which looks like it might be spiky and soft at the same time.

That’s a risk Andrew absolutely cannot take, one he could not take even if he were the sort of person takes risks. Even if he was the kind of person who eats a wasabi cream puff on purpose just to _know_ , which he is not.

“Okay Google,” Andrew says, hearing the frustration in his own voice. “Find me the nearest body of water to drive into.”

“The Los Angeles River is four point four miles away!” The Google assistant chirps back helpfully. “Rerouting you!”

She really is helpful.

**III. The Big Meat**

Andrew swings by to pick up Adam early the day after next, six hours before the afternoon shoot’s due to start. They want to go over the schedule again, the whole crew, and there will be production interns to brief and food to set up and shots to plan. And then there’s the Big Meat to wrangle.

They’ve decided to shoot at Steven’s because they don’t want it to feel like a set. They want it to feel like a home, like they’ve gathered their friends for a real holiday dinner instead of a Buzzfeed Video ™. They selected Steven’s place just because it’s clean.

Clean’s not quite the word, although it is. It’s empty. Sure, there’s furniture there, and dinnerware and cups and the kitchen things they’ll need. It’s a place where someone could stay, but it’s clearly not a _home_ these days.  

“None of your stuff is here,” Andrew says, trying not to sound betrayed by it. Maybe he should have been expecting it. He hasn’t been in Steven’s apartment more than a couple of times, but when he was last here it was full to bursting with _Steven-ness_ , colors and art, textured rugs and tchotchkes from his travels. Now the walls are bare, like it’s a model home.

“Yeah, it’s in New York,” Steven says, almost apologetic. “I should really just stay in an Extended Stay when I’m in L.A., but I haven’t been quite able to bring myself to give the place up.”

“So much for that homey quality,” Andrew says, and then he feels bad when Steven’s face falls. “No, it’s way better than one of the studios, obviously.”

They set about filming the main event, the piece de resistance: a beautiful nine-pound prime rib they’re going to rub down and slow cook until guests arrive, and then serve tender and medium-rare and juicy. Before the cameras roll, Andrew pulls Steven aside.

“Okay, remember when we filmed the first episode of this season and you got really excited about the electric dad knife at Friedmann’s?”

“Yeah. Oh, hey, we started the season with big family-style meats and we’re ending it with big meats too. That’s awesome.”

“Well, I said I’d get you one for Christmas, so.”

Andrew pulls out a neatly wrapped rectangular package he’d squirreled away when he arrived. He feels pretty stupid about it, actually; Christmas isn’t for another seven weeks, and he’ll probably see Steven again before then. But he did promise, and today they actually have occasion to use one.

Steven takes the package. He pulls the ribbon between his fingers, pulling it taut and letting it crimp back into place. When he looks up at Andrew his face is soft and fond, and then he tugs the ribbon open and eases open the wrapping at the seams so it unfurls in one intact sheet. Andrew would have thought Steven would tear into presents like he tears into food, but he’s very meticulous about it.

Sure enough, it’s a serrated electric knife. Nothing fancy, just a $35 Cuisinart, but Steven handles it with caution anyway.

“I think you should have the honor of cutting the meat,” Andrew says. “If you want it.”

“I’ll fuck it up,” Steven mutters, a rare curse from him. He saves them up for when he means them, and almost never on camera. “I can’t believe you remembered the dumb dad knife.”

Andrew had gone out and bought it the day they’d filmed the wrap-up for that video. It had been so good, having Steven back in L.A., putting together the episode for him for a change. Andrew went out that night and bought the knife and put it away for a rainy day, just because he felt like commemorating it with something.

“You won’t fuck it up,” he says. “You don’t really fuck many things up these days, in case you hadn’t noticed. Just don’t cut your finger off, because I’d feel pretty bad about that.”

Then Adam comes back in the kitchen, camera in hand, ready to go. Steven looks momentarily flustered. He folds up the wrapping paper small and shoves it in his pocket, like they’ve been caught at something. Andrew can feel Adam’s eyes on them, ever watchful.

“Dad knife,” he says by way of explanation, taking it out of Steven’s hand and resting it on the prep table for later cutting.

They assemble a gorgeous dry rub for the prime rib, paprika and oregano and thyme, a touch of cayenne for kick. Andrew had done some basic seasoning last night, just salt and pepper to let it tenderize overnight, but he wants that crust.

“Come on, Steven, help me give this Big Meat a good rub,” Andrew says with a glance at the camera and a wry grin, just for the pleasure of watching Steven go pink. He’s running out of opportunities—Steven will be headed back to New York City the day after tomorrow—and he has to store them up when he can, like a bear getting ready to hibernate for the winter.

“Rub it yourself,” Steven shoots back, but he reaches into the bowl to run his clean hands through the rub, fingers tracing through it like sand.

Together they rub the beef down (“the roast beast, like the Whos call it down in Whoville,” Steven insists on calling it) and get it in the oven. Adam and Annie wander off to film the set-up in the connected dining room. Andrew can just seem them moving around in there, weaving around a sea of PAs and interns, tending to the lighting rigs. Shoots are usually a small affair, just the four of them in a car, but this one’s got more people and requires more babysitting.

Andrew’s got dry rub all over his hand. He puts his finger to his mouth absentmindedly for a taste of the spices, something he’d do as second nature when cooking for himself and has forgotten not to do in public.

It tastes perfect. Peppery, hot, a little minty from the thyme, like a holiday prime rib ought to taste. He makes a small satisfied noise to himself, and when he looks up again Steven’s staring at him and wiping his own clean hands on a towel.

“ _Andrew_ ,” Steven says, at the exact same time as Andrew says, “What’s up?”

“I have to try things,” Steven blurts out. “If I don’t try them I won’t—I won’t know if—I won’t _know_.”

Andrew doesn’t quite understand that by “try things” Steven means _put his mouth on them_ until Steven is, indeed, putting his mouth on Andrew. Trying him.

There are people right there—a whole crew right there, Jesus, anyone could see—but Steven’s stepping into Andrew’s space, walking him back into the prep table, and leaning down to kiss him full on the mouth. It’s artless and unpracticed but it’s _happening_ , and Andrew’s far too taken aback to do anything but rest his spice-covered hand on Steven’s side and let himself be kissed.

“Mmmf,” Andrew says directly into Steven’s mouth, but there isn’t time to do anything else, even to kiss back properly, before Steven is pulling back and skittering away. _No, wait_ , Andrew wants to say, _that wasn’t a fair test, it was barely even a real kiss._

He’d never have done it himself. He wants that on the record, for whoever might be paying attention. He would _never_ , not at work, not ever, no matter how much or how long he wanted to. He can’t say for sure which approach is the right one, which of them is more virtuous.

Steven’s got a smudgy handprint on his shirt, at his side, where Andrew’s hand had been seconds earlier. The bright red of the paprika stands out against the white. Steven sees Andrew looking at it and looks down, and when he sees it too he starts backing out of the room.

“I’d better change,” Steven says by way of explanation, and then he’s just—gone, into his bedroom. Into the room but used to be his bedroom but is now just a room he sometimes sleeps in.

Andrew washes his hands slowly, with water as punishingly hot as he can get it, until his hands are lobster pink and no trace of the spice rub remains under his nails.

“Andrew? Are you allergic?”

He turns around and it’s Rie, setting her magnificent croquembouche on the counter and looking at him with concern.

“Allergic?” His voice sounds funny. His face must look funny, too, and Andrew wonders if _Ask Me About Kissing My_ _Coworker_ _at Work on a Thursday!_ is written all over it.

“Your neck is all red and splotchy,” Rie says. “Is it, um, what’s—hives? An allergy?”

“This shoot was a mistake,” Andrew says. It’s not an answer, but Rie smiles kindly at him all the same.

“No it wasn’t, it’s beautiful,” she says, leaning next to him against the counter. “Is it even the holidays if you don’t fight with your family in the kitchen over a slab of beef? What are you calling it, Big Meat?”

“Nobody’s fighting,” Andrew says, but then he realizes he doesn’t know if that’s true or not. Nobody _was_ fighting, but it’s possible they are now. It’s possible that whatever Steven was looking for, he didn’t find it, or that he’ll regret looking for it in Andrew at all.

“No,” she agrees. “Almost the same thing, though, isn’t it? They are neighbors, fighting and loving.”

He looks sharply up at her, but she’s still got her sunshine smile on, easy as can be. She holds up two fingers apart and then pulls them together tight in illustration.

“Mind-reader,” he mumbles.

“Not everybody makes me read their mind,” Rie says. “Some people talk to their friends when they need help.”

It’s a chide, but the nicest possible one.

“I didn’t know I needed help until basically right now,” Andrew admits.

“In that case, my advice is that every problem seems less daunting after a good meal,” Rie says. “I think you should cook and eat and the rest will probably work out. It’s…” she thinks for a moment over her words. “It is a healing.”

As philosophies go it’s almost staggeringly simple. It’s sort of what the whole Worth It venture is built on, isn’t it, even if Steven doesn’t usually talk about it that way. The idea that good food makes lives tangibly better and happier. The hope that everybody can access the simple joy of food well-made, and friends to eat it with.

That’s what Andrew’s been looking for with this whole shoot, this entire three-part episode, he realizes: a healing. He wants to heal the fissure of Steven’s move, the lingering effects on the show, the lingering sense of loss he feels. He wants to gather his little work family in a room and show them his appreciation with food, the way he sometimes finds difficult to do with words.

“Thank you, Rie,” he says. “Really. Also, your Russian Roulette croquembouche is evil.”

She throws her head back and laughs, like she knows it and she isn’t sorry.

*

It’s a good episode. You can feel it sometimes, when a chef is particularly charismatic, when either he or Steven is particularly in love with a certain location or a food. There’s that feeling where it clicks into place. You can always see it on Adam’s face when it happens, his deliberate expressionlessness shifting into the tiniest of grins as he fiddles with his camera.

Andrew keeps a little list for himself: eating a $5 bowl of salmon chowder in Seattle while the leaves changed colors around them, fall on the air like you just can’t get in L.A. Poke in Hawaii, his feet in the sand. Shoving Joe’s Pizza into his mouth straight out of the box on the sidewalk in NYC, so cold out that the rain’s turning to snow. Everything about Japan the second time, summed up with _Kyubey_.

This belongs on that list.

Steven comes out of the bedroom in a clean shirt, a soft-looking mauve sweater a size too big for him, and nobody says a word about the outfit change. The guests start to arrive; their cast, technically, Andrew supposes, but he thinks of them as their guests anyway.

Kwesi shows up early to assemble the world’s most potent eggnog variant, which features a full bottle of rum and makes Steven cough and pound his fist on the table when he drinks it. Kiano arrives with her samosas. Ryan and Shane turn up five minutes after the shooting schedule indicated, looking pleased to get paid to eat good food, be little shits about it ( _Ryan_ ), and get featured in the thumbnail.  

The minute Andrew pulls the beef out of the oven, he forgets to be worried. It smells too good. It’s too impressive, this great hunk of meat that he and Steven made themselves, the first thing they’ve ever cooked together. Andrew hands Steven the electric carving knife and something passes between them, something domestic and comfortable and real-feeling.

He can almost forget they’re filming, it feels so much like an actual dinner party. He can almost forget that a few hours ago, Steven was kissing him in the kitchen and then backing away.

At the table Andrew watches Steven’s face carefully when he takes his first bite of prime rib. Steven’s face lights up. He gives a little groan of pleasure and melts against Andrew’s side for a second, warm and sturdy. Normally Andrew would pull away from the contact after a moment, but today he sits very still and lets himself feel it.

Steven sits up straight again, but he doesn’t move all the way away. His thigh is warm against Andrew’s under the table. It might be something of an apology: _I’m sorry I ran away._

Andrew presses his own thigh back: _I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you better than that. You surprised me._

And just like that the preliminaries are out of the way. Andrew says a silent prayer of thanks to the Big Meat for facilitating, at the very least, a peaceful détente.

Over dessert, he decides what he wants to do.

Andrew could say no more about it, and let it fade into the sort of memory they can laugh about in a year or two, _hey, remember when…?_ They work together, after all. Steven spends most of his time in New York. Steven is not a casual person; he takes intimacy seriously, holds it sacred, in a way Andrew finds intimidating and isn’t sure he can be trusted with. Steven is also, as far as Andrew knows, generally attracted to women and not to Andrews.

No one would hold it against Andrew for making the safe call here, on something so important, with so much at stake. There are a dozen good reasons to stick with the regular cream puff. There are worse things to be than safe.

But then again, Steven nailed it the very first time: if Andrew doesn’t try the wasabi cream puff, if he doesn’t take the risk, he’ll always wonder about it.

Andrew gets his answer, as Rie promised he would, when she brings out her fabulous showstopper Russian Roulette croquembouche and explains the rules of the game. They go around the table one-by-one, biting into their cream puffs. Shane and Ryan wind up goading each other into tossing their cream puffs into their mouths whole at the same time, and the table howls with delight when they get the only two wasabi cream puffs on the tower at the same time.

Andrew’s hearing goes fuzzy. Somewhere in the distance he can hear Bergara coughing and gasping over the wasabi, can hear Shane gagging next to him, can hear Rie’s cackles of glee and Steven in tears laughing next to him.

“You’re sick!” Ryan is telling Rie. “You’re sick, you’re a sick woman. Look at her laughing!”

It’s hilarious, of course it is, and Andrew laughs right along with the rest of them. But also— _but also_. He takes a bite of his own cream puff and it’s just cream, as he knew it would be.

It’s just cream, and it’s delicious, and Andrew is disappointed.

What’s just happened, Andrew realizes, is that the croquembouche has somehow called his bluff. It’s like flipping a coin and realizing only after you’ve done it that you desperately wanted the other result all along. All his excuses suddenly seem weak and paper-thin in comparison to his overwhelming desire to find out what might happen _if_.

Andrew takes sip of wine and gives himself permission to want the scary thing. Across the table, Rie calms down enough to raise her own wine glass to him in a silent toast, as if she knows what she’s done. As if she meant to do it all along.

*

It’s a long shoot, nearly three hours on top of the five of prep. The guests go home at five, and then they spend a little time helping Steven clean up, just the four of them: Steven and Andrew and Adam and Annie with trash bags and a sink full of dirty dishes.

“The digital media game is very glamorous,” Andrew says, elbow-deep in suds. Adam’s next to him, drying dishes and putting them away in Steven’s cabinets. Andrew’s pretty sure he’s guessing where they go, and that Steven won’t even notice if they’re out of place, as few meals as he eats here.

“We did once eat a two-thousand-dollar bunch of grapes,” Adam reminds him. “And a doughnut that made you poop gold. That’s not glamorous enough for you?”

“Fair point.”

They’re quiet after that, not because there’s nothing they could say but because there’s nothing in particular they _need_ to say. Silences with Adam are always comfortable.

“I need you to get a ride home with Annie,” Andrew says as they’re finishing up the dishes, as casually as he can manage. Too casually, perhaps, because Adam squints at him.

“Jesus,” Adam says. He gives a heavy sigh, an I’m-updating-my-resume-in-my-head sigh.

“Not like…it’s not,” Andrew starts. He tries again. “He’s going back h—to New York soon and I need to talk to him about things.”

“Things,” Adam repeats. He waits for several beats that stretch into full measures. Andrew lied; not all the silences are comfortable. This one’s judgmental.

“Stop,” Andrew says. “It’s not...stop.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s the nothing you didn’t say that’s…I can feel you thinking at me.”

“Just don’t fuck up,” Adam says.

No pressure. No big deal. _Just don’t fuck up_. Easy as that.

*

Annie and Adam say their goodbyes and then it’s just Steven, Andrew, and three pounds of leftover Big Meat.

They make prime rib sandwiches and eat them on Steven’s old couch, the one he didn’t like enough to have shipped to New York.

“Earlier,” Andrew starts.

“It’s okay,” Steven says. “Really. Like I said, I had to try it. I wanted to know if I would like it. I wanted to be able to stop thinking about kissing you, and the only way I knew how to do that was to just, you know.”

“Did you?” Andrew asks. “Like it?” That second part, the part where Steven’s been thinking about it— _for how long?—_ is almost too much to deal with right now, on top of everything else.

This is a difficult conversation to have with anyone, let alone someone who’s very recently kissed you, let alone a man who’s very recently kissed you. Let alone a religious man who’s very recently kissed you, whose boundaries you don’t know and whose faith you don’t fully understand but want to respect. There are a lot of moving parts here.

Steven thinks about that.

“I like kissing,” he says. “Not that I have exhaustive data on that either, but kissing’s one of the nicest things there is.”

“That wasn’t really an answer,” Andrew nudges.

“I liked it,” Steven says. “I just wasn’t wild about the part where I don’t think you liked it very much.”

Andrew sighs. He was afraid of this. He is a tentative person, and Steven’s very _not_ tentative, and the wires get crossed sometimes.

“Steven, it’s not—I was surprised, that’s all. You can’t just kiss a guy when his hands are all covered in dry rub and expect…I was _surprised_. I didn’t want to freak you out.”

Steven tucks his legs up on the couch, knees to his chin, just eyes and silver hair poking over the crest of them.   

“Oh, sorry,” Steven says. “I didn’t realize there was a rule about not kissing people over prime rib. I didn’t realize there was a Dry Rub Corollary.” His smile peeps out over his knees, and the fact that he would dare pull out the word _corollary_ in this conversation makes Andrew want to kiss him all over again to make him stop saying ridiculous things.

So he does.

As far as strategies for shutting Steven Lim up when he’s saying weird shit goes, this one isn’t bad. Andrew could kick himself for not discovering it sooner, although he’s still not sure how he might go about employing it in public.

The negotiation is tricky at first, because they’re both sitting on a couch and not facing each other. Andrew pushes gently past the barrier of Steven’s legs, nudging them down, careful to keep it PG. He takes Steven’s chin in his hand and gives him a proper kiss, a real kiss, the kind of kiss he can own and not be embarrassed of. Whatever happens later, Andrew is determined that this will be a good memory, good like Seattle, like Hawaii, like Japan. A repayment in kind for all the new places Steven’s taken him.

Steven’s mouth falls open under his. For someone who allegedly doesn’t spend a lot of time kissing men on couches, Steven’s keeping up pretty well. He kisses unpredictably, the smooth slide of his mouth giving way to a bite here, a nudge of his tongue there. To Andrew’s surprise it’s Steven who kicks it up a notch, easing his tongue along Andrew’s, reaching a hand out to tangle in Andrew’s short hair, making a small noise of pleasure.

And then, suddenly, with no warning, a lapful of Lim. Several notches, then.

“Good grief, Steven!”

“Don’t worry,” Steven says, kissing his way up Andrew’s neck, and Andrew’s starting to suspect now that rumors of Steven Lim’s bashful inexperience have been greatly exaggerated. “I’m taller than you, I’m stronger than you, I’m louder than you, and I’m on top of you. I’ll let you know if it’s too much.”

Actually, now that Andrew’s thinking about it, he can’t remember the last time he made out with somebody on a couch, without intention of going further. He forgot how good it could be, the simple unhurried press of mouths on mouths, the slow discovery of someone’s body without the pressure of _what’s next?_

Steven’s responsive, the way he gets when he eats something really delicious. His sighs and little groans are _just_ like that, and Andrew’s starting to worry this is going to affect his ability to get through Worth It shoots in the future. He’s going to be stuck hiding Pavlovian boners under his napkin while Steven moans about succulent melt-in-your-mouth steak for the duration of his time at Buzzfeed, he just knows it.

“Stop it, you’re ruining food for me,” Andrew mutters into Steven’s neck.

Steven laughs. “Not possible. I’ve seen you eat. The apocalypse couldn’t ruin food for you.”

He shifts his hips down, down, down, and Andrew can feel that he’s hard, and he knows that Steven can feel that he’s hard too. It’s a tricky line to walk, this line between sexy and sex, and he has to trust that Steven knows which side of it he wants to be on.

Steven rocks down a few times, like he’s testing the sensation, feeling around for his limits. He’s kissing Andrew with the sort of enthusiasm Andrew’s previously only seen him exhibit for sushi. Andrew runs a hand down his spine, splays it on his lower back under the softness of his sweater, fingertips just under the waistband of Steven’s pants. That’s when Steven shudders and pulls back.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, uh. Uncle.”

“Oh,” Andrew says, keeping his voice light. “Oh no, my name’s…it’s _Andrew_. Awkward.”

Steven slaps him on the arm and dismounts. He shivers again and then he does a little rhythmic wiggle, snapping his fingers, before settling back on the couch and picking up his forgotten sandwich. Andrew can’t tell if he’s dancing or if he’s trying to subtly adjust himself in his pants.

“What was that?” Andrew asks.

“My Big Meat dance,” Steven says. He takes a bite of his sandwich for emphasis.

“More like Respectably Average-Sized Meat dance,” Andrew says, just to watch Steven almost choke on his bite.  

“I miss your stupid jokes so much when I’m in New York,” he says when he finishes chewing. “Even your terrible food puns. I miss them a lot more than the California produce.”

“I miss your everything when you’re in New York,” Andrew says. It comes out more bare-faced and sincere than he intended, but Steven just beams a smile up at him, all white teeth and loose, relaxed limbs.

“I’ve been thinking,” Steven says, “that maybe I should try to be in L.A. a little more, for the good of the show. Maybe two weeks a month instead of one. We did a good job with this season, but I’m thinking a little more in-person collaboration would be useful.”

“That would be…that would be very good,” Andrew says, cautious, trying not to imagine all the forms that collaboration might take. “For the show.”

Steven sighs and settles against his side, and Andrew tries to enjoy the touch for what it is and not overthink it. It’s not a real plan, and Andrew _will_ need a plan eventually. He’s meticulous that way. He approaches things far less important than this with an abundance of strategy, trying to assemble the perfect bite of food or find the most seamless route to a shoot, so he’s not about to totally throw his hands in the air and leave this up to chance.

For Steven, though, he’s willing to try his hand at a little impulsivity, at least for now. He trusts Steven to make sure it doesn’t go off the rails. If Steven can handle a two-week shooting trip in Japan, with a crew of seven and a language he doesn’t speak, he can probably handle Andrew.

“You are by far the scariest thing I have ever put in my mouth,” Andrew says, and then he can feel his own face heating up, because that didn’t come out exactly as he’d intended. Steven giggles into his sandwich.

“You want to try that again?”

“I just mean that I’ve gone a few rounds with Rie’s Russian Roulette croquembouche and you’re still the biggest chance I’ll take today.”

Steven considers that. He stretches his legs out over Andrew’s lap, his socked feet dangling over the edge of Andrew’s knees.

“Andrew, I moved to New York in the spring and you’re still the biggest chance I’ll take this _year_ ,” he says. “But sometimes you just have to grab a cream puff off the pile and see what happens.”

There will be time, later, for _what are we doing_ and _what are your boundaries_ and _what am I to you_ , but it can wait. It’s almost the holidays and Steven is here, and the family he’s made is here, and there’s three pounds of prime rib and the leftovers of four pies in the fridge. That’s worth a lot.

*

 


End file.
